UN aid agencies have condemned a US-Israeli plan to use aid as “bait” to forcibly displace Palestinian civilians into a small area of southern Gaza.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee unveiled the plan on Friday, although there’s no clear timeline, and Gaza remains under a total Israeli blockade, pushing millions of civilians into starvation.
Huckabee said the effort will be headed by a newly formed private foundation, and the aid distribution will be carried out by private US security contractors. He said four aid distribution sites would be established and admitted that the program would initially only feed about 1.2 million people, or about 60% of Gaza’s population.
When pressed on the lack of a plan to feed the rest of the Palestinian population of Gaza, Huckabee said it would be “scaled up” over time. An Israeli official speaking to The Times of Israel said Israel hoped other countries would begin taking in Palestinians to minimize the need for aid, meaning Israel intends to use the threat of starvation to push for ethnic cleansing.
The Times of Israel report also said the four aid distribution sites will be set up south of the Morag Corridor, a strip of land Israel has seized that is just north of the southern city of Rafah. Under its plans to escalate the assault on Gaza, Israel wants to “concentrate” all of Gaza’s civilian population into this tiny area.
Once Palestinians are forced into a concentration camp in the south, Israel would then pressure them to leave Gaza, although it’s unclear where they would go. “The Gazan citizens will be concentrated in the south. They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
James Elder, a spokesman for the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said establishing the aid distribution centers in the south would give Palestinians the “impossible choice between displacement and death.”
He said the plan “contravenes basic humanitarian principles” and appears designed to “reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic.”
UNRWA has said it has thousands of trucks ready to deliver aid to Gaza but they continue to be blocked by Israel. “There is a simple alternative: lift the blockade, let humanitarian aid in, save lives,” Elder said.
